I joined The Connector Podcast with Koen Vanderhoydonk to discuss how artificial intelligence (AI) is altering the foundations of financial services and what it means for institutions navigating this transition.
Koen opened by referencing a speech I gave at the beginning of the Year of the Snake, where I drew on cultural mythologies to frame AI as a civilisational force. Across cultures, the snake symbolises humanity’s aspiration for power and immortality, but also renewal rather than eternal life. The metaphor remains relevant today as AI expands human capability while confronting us with the limits of our control.
Much of the anxiety surrounding AI stems from this tension. We are building systems that scale intelligence, yet we are still constructing the governance required to contain it. Regulation, data controls and ethical frameworks are emerging globally, not to constrain innovation but to ensure AI remains a servant to humanity rather than an autonomous force.
From there, we moved into the implications for financial services. Hyper-personalisation, long anticipated in banking, is now operationally viable. Institutions can tailor products, interfaces and risk models to each customer in real time, while facing new exposure to bias, fairness and compliance risks.
Governance again becomes central. Principles-based regimes rely on interpretive judgement grounded in core values, while rules-based systems codify detailed prescriptions for conduct. Each produces distinct consequences for how banks deploy AI, manage algorithms and ensure accountability. The industry remains in an exploratory phase as these models evolve alongside the technology itself.
We then turned to AI’s structural impact on banking.
Financial services has always been an intermediation business, positioned between transacting parties to facilitate trust and settlement. AI, particularly agentic AI, begins to erode that centrality. End users can construct their own financial interfaces, automate decisions and bypass institutional layers.
This shift extends into operations. AI compresses the technological complexity of banking across the front, middle and back office, weakening technology superiority as a source of competitive advantage.
Banks therefore face a strategic imperative to redefine their role in the transaction chain and articulate the value they create in an environment where access and execution are increasingly decentralised.
When asked to prioritise the industry’s greatest challenge, adapting to AI stands above resisting disruption or cultivating innovation culture, because those challenges are embedded within the AI transition itself.
Here’s what we discussed:
- AI governance as the defining constraint on technological power.
- The civilisational anxieties underpinning today’s AI debate.
- Hyper-personalisation and its fairness and compliance risks.
- Agentic AI and the erosion of financial intermediation.
- The need for banks to redefine institutional value.
Listen to the full conversation below.
